THE ACADEMY PROGRAMMES
Programmes of ACROPOLIS GRAPPLING, LLC
Six full programmes operate under the limestone colonnade of the academy in Orem. Each one follows a seeded structure, a fixed coach, and the same small-group mat promise. This page is your guide to how the classes run.
Fundamentals Grappling Classes
Everything begins standing beside a rolled mat. Fundamentals Grappling Classes at the academy teach the sport of submission grappling from the very first whistle. A member starts on the ground learning the two most important habits of the whole discipline: how to breathe calmly under weight and how to frame against a stronger partner. From there the curriculum marches through the guard, the half guard, the side control, the mount, and the back, with each position drilled half slow and half live so that the body learns the position before the brain names it.
Every Fundamentals session opens with a takedown drill because the academy refuses to raise ground specialist who cannot stand up and wrestle. Members learn safe break falls in week one on the soft limestone floor of the training hall. Coaches walk the room during every round and leave each student with a spoken coach note. The course runs on a small roster of never more than a dozen per session so that nobody waits an entire round without a partner.
Progression follows the academy belt scale from white forward, and promotion is earned by demonstrating every technique from the printed recital, not by counting classes. The weight class chips on the wall show that the room splits by Rooster, Light, Middle, Heavy, Open, and Absolute so that a newcomer always finds a fair training partner.
Fundamentals meets on the weekend mornings and on weekday evenings, and the same curriculum feeds directly into the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Programme. A member who finishes six months of Fundamentals is ready to join the live floor with confidence and a coach note history of their own progress.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Programme
The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Programme is the deep river of the academy. It trains the full game from closed guard to open guard, from the mount attack to the back attack, and from the sweep to the submission finish. Unlike a hobby class, this programme keeps a fixed technical syllabus that rotates on a two month cycle so that every member eventually meets every major position twice before their first competition.
Class rhythm never wanders. The opening movement takes the athlete through skill chaining that loosens the joints and recalls the previous technique. The coach then teaches one central technique and immediately splits the room into pairs of similar weight and rank. Drilling climbs from slow mirror work to moderate resistance in the space of about ten minutes, and the session finishes with live positional rolls on a scoring clock.
Belt lines follow recognised Brazilian jiu-jitsu standards under the supervision of the academy coach. Stripes are awarded in the coach note book after the full series is shown from memory. The academy serves gi and no-gi players from the same schedule, and the wardrobe rules are posted on the contact page. Every strand member learns to train the takedown as much as the ground because the competition wall rewards whoever wins the entry to the floor.
Beginners in the programme are paired with partners no more than a few days ahead of their own skill so that the first months shape confidence rather than fear. The rolling hoop of Warmup, Drill, Roll, Coach Note, and Shake Hands closes each hour in the same calm way.
Kids and Youth Academy
The Kids and Youth Academy takes athletes from roughly age five to seventeen and turns their energy into the shape of the sport. Younger children practise in a loud and joyful room where games hide the movement drills inside a story. They learn to roll over a shoulder, to escape the bottom, and most importantly to stop when the whistle blows and to listen at the mat edge. Discipline here means staying within the lines around the rolled mats and speaking with respect to a training partner.
The youth line aged around ten and older follows the same bracket wall as the adults and may earn a place in the competition prep programme after an intake assessment. Youth athletes learn real submission grappling with a strict safety code: no standing submissions, no leg locks, and no techniques beyond the listed children syllabus. Coaches keep the room small so that every single child receives a coach note each practice, twice where possible.
Parents watch from the benches beside the colonnade window and can ask for a written coach note about their child after any session. The academy views a youth class as a partnership with the family, and it publishes the evening and weekend timetable clearly so that sport never crowds out homework or rest.
Children leave the Kids and Youth Academy with balance, posture, manners, and the memory of learning a hard thing by patient steps. Many of them move into the adult Fundamentals line at the academy as teenagers and find that their old bodies remember the frames.
Competition Team Training
The Competition Team Training programme is reserved for athletes who want the podium. It runs at a harder tempo in the middle of the evening when the hall is quiet and the rolled mats lie in a longer row. Team members train on a ladder that mirrors the seeded bracket wall at the front of the hall, so every athlete always knows who stands on their side of the draw and which game plan will be tested that week.
An eight week camp block builds toward each major regional tournament. Rounds run longer and the whistle clock rules the room. Each block includes one filmed match review where the whole team watches the same game tape on the hall screen and the coach names the gripping error and the entry that wins the exchange. Competition athletes keep a game plan sheet updated at every camp.
The team enjoyed a forty-eight medal season and publishes the full body of results on the academy noticeboard after every tournament so that the culture stays honest. There is no hiding a hard draw inside a photo crop. Every medal is won on the flow of technique that the Fundamentals and BJJ lines planted.
Selection for the Competition Team runs by invitation after at least six months on the mats and a demonstrated guard under pressure. Team members keep their place in the fundamentals room too, because the coaches believe that a podium athlete must never lose the habit of teaching a beginner.
No-Gi and Wrestling Rounds
The No-Gi and Wrestling Rounds strand is the takedown workshop of the academy. It strips off the gi and meets the sport in rash guard and shorts where the grips live on the wrist, the collar bone, and the thigh rather than on the cloth. Athletes here drill the single leg, the double leg, the body lock, the knee tap, and the head pinch that decides who travels under whom.
Wrestling rounds run under a hard match clock with a whistle break and a restart on the line, exactly like a real competition in a gymnasium. Members learn to fight for the first whistle, to control the pace when tired, and to reset their breath between exchanges instead of collapsing to a knee. The same strand trains the no-gi BJJ game so that an athlete can carry scoring from the feet to the finish on the floor.
One evening each month the academy opens a crossover night where gi players meet the no-gi group and wrestling athletes meet the BJJ floor. These nights produce the most creative rolls of the season and the loudest coach notes of the month. Members find that grips learned with the gi translate into cleaner no-gi control once the fabric is gone.
No-Gi and Wrestling Rounds suit the athlete who wants scrambles, riding time, and the pure athletic burst of standing wrestling inside a coached and safe room.
Private Lessons and Open Mat
Private lessons are the surgical tool of the academy. A private hour on the limestone floor covers exactly what the member asks for: a guard pass that keeps failing in competition warmups, a wrestling shot that stalls at the hips, or the mental routine that leads into a tournament walk. The coach films the first ten minutes, builds the correction around real footage, and closes the lesson with a written coach note. Privates are booked by the block through the contact page.
Open Mat is the community floor of the week. Three sessions run on the roster so that members schedule around shifts and school. The open mat welcomes every rank from white belt to coach and pairs freely by weight and mood rather than by a fixed draw. Nobody keeps a score and nobody shouts instructions across the room; the rolling hoop shrinks to the simple roll, the tap, and the shake hands at the end of every exchange.
New members are encouraged to attend at least one Open Mat before they choose their programme, because it shows the real culture of the hall better than any advertisement. The bracket wall empties onto the floor and the whole academy rolls together in a friendly tide.
Between the fundamentals line, the BJJ river, the youth room, the competition camp, the no-gi roundhouse, and the open floor, ACROPOLIS GRAPPLING, LLC offers a complete path from first fall to first podium under one limestone colonnade in Orem.